Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai – From Topeka to Tashkent, Langston Hughes in Eurasia – 23/5/18

In the early 1930s, Langston Hughes travelled through Soviet Central Asia, China and Japan. We are delighted to host the writer Aaliyah Bilal, who, through Hughes’ letters and autobiographical material, will give us a unique insight into this fascinating topic.

Aaliyah Bilal is a fiction/non-fiction writer and an Islamicist. Previously she was a recipient of the Shansi Memorial Fellowship at Yunnan University where for two years she conducted research among Hui Zu Muslims. A graduate of The School of Oriental and African Studies at The University of London, she is finishing a book on her experience living as a black woman in East Asia.

7pm – Garden Books, Changle Lu